Father of subway bombing casualty charged with aggravated hooliganism

The father of a subway bombing casualty who represented her in the trial of Dzmitry Kanavalaw and Uladzislaw Kavalyow has been formally charged with aggravated hooliganism, according to Alyaksandr Fedartsow, the judge in the trial.

As the hearing on the case of the pair accused of this past April`s subway bombing resumed in the Supreme Court on Thursday, Mr. Fedartsow read out fragments of a police warrant for Alyaksandr Kruty’s arrest, which said that while at a health institution in Minsk on August 17, Mr. Kruty deliberately poured two jars of urine on the head of the chief doctor.

With that act, he showed “cynicism and disregard for ethical norms,” the warrant read.

Mr. Fedartsow would not specify the health institution or name the doctor.

Alyaksandr Kruty was arrested in the city on September 20. Police later told the family that he was in custody on suspicion of hooliganism, an offense punishable under Article 339 of the Criminal Code.

In the evening, it became known that the man had been placed in a psychiatric hospital on the orders of a prosecutor.

Speaking on the opening day of the trial of Messrs. Kanavalaw and Kavalyow, Mr. Kruty requested the court to postpone the proceedings until the abolition of the death penalty and the introduction of the institution of jury in Belarus.

Mr. Kruty represented Inesa in the trial because the woman is still recovering from serious injuries that she sustained in the bombing.

Mr. Kruty, a physicist by education, was a human rights defender in the early 2000s and faced a charge of insulting Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The case was dropped in 2008. The man was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia that same year.